This morning I performed my first Body Beast Workout. This one was build, chest and triceps.

All I can say is WOW, this workout ROCKED!! I don’t say this lightly, but I really mean it. My chest and triceps were still shaking 2 hours later. The great thing about this workout is that it felt safe. Over the past few weeks I’ve been doing my own bulking routine. Last week I bench pressed somewhere near twice my bodyweight and although I could press the weight it rocked me through to the core. It didn’t feel safe and I picked up a minor injury in the process. This workout, like many of the Body Beast workouts focussed on something called dynamic set training. This form of training combines single sets, supersets, giant sets, drops sets and force sets.

This was was approx 48 minute workout and consisted of single sets, supersets and dropsets for chest and triceps. The quality of the DVD production looks really slick and I like the on-screen tracker that shows up after each move. All moves in this workout leveraged dumbbells and a bench (incline required). There was an alternative move performed by one of the guys in the video, as per the familiar P90X format.  To be honest I believe a bench is a much better, safer approach. The warmup was very short and involved stretching and a range of pushups. Chest exercises included bench supersets/drop set for flat press, close grip, fly in addition to incline press and fly. Typically there are 3 sets with progression in reps from 15 to 12 to 8 or lower.  Triceps involved a range of skullcrusher and extension type moves. Decline pushups and diamond pushups also made an appearance and worked as finishers, or should I say punishers!

Finally, there was a 60 seconds blast of token ab work involving a set of in and out crunches on the bench.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this workout  I am excited to get stuck into the rest of the schedule. I love to test myself and see how far I can go. The early signs are that Body Beast is definitely going to push me all the way. Below are the exercises and format.

Build: Chest/Tris

Single Set x 4
Dumbbell Chest Press

 Super Set x 4
Incline Dumbbell Fly
Incline Dumbbell Press

Giant Set x 3
Close Grip Press
Partial Chest Fly
Decline Push-Ups

Single Set
Tricep Extension

Super Set x 3
Single Arm Kickback – Left
Single Arm Kickback – Right
Tricep Extension

Super Set x 2
Dips on Bench
Ins and Outs